Infractions
 

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[Nevermind! I misunderstood the post.]

Oh. My bad. I deleted it!

KSU i pmed you. Littleowl. would you like to be as well?

I had to write one last year (I was a Pi Chi) for one of the chapters. It sucked but, really, the accused chapter acted very poorly and deserved it. I have no clue what happened because of it though...I think they just send a copy to your HQ and Panhellenic sends you a fine.

I know the year I rushed, one of the chapters on my campus did something (I was a very naive PNM, so I have no idea what) and were not allowed to sing when PNMs entered the house.

This house, we will call them XYZ, was a top chapter and also VERY creative at getting around the rules, so instead of singing, they played music and danced as PNMs entered. (After that night, they were reprimanded [although technically they broke no rules, just the spirit of the law] and had to be actually silent)

I honestly didn't notice, and it didn't really affect their recruitment, as they got a really great pledgeclass that year.

However, ever after when talking about recruitment violations, the big threat was always having our songs taken away, like XYZ. Some girls do remember it, and said it was kind of weird going through like that.

That chapter STILL gets around the rules to this day, often very creatively, although really all that means is that every year all the recruitment chairs have to sit around and talk about what it REALLY means to have identical bottles of water offered at each recruitment. I have to give XYZ credit for being really creative, but after a 3 hour conversation about bottled water, I was pretty annoyed.

Anyway, the only other thing I know about rush infractions was that one year, 30 minutes before a party started we were told we weren't allowed to hang sheets, we could only drape them (after already having been okayed on it), and we had so little time and were so annoyed we just went ahead and paid the fine.

Not sure if this is what you're looking for, hope it helps.

The year I was a Rho Chi there was an infraction against a specific sorority for giving alcohol to PNMs in the bathroom of a bar right before recruitment began. At Elon, the only freshman who remain on campus during winter term break are usually going through recruitment. Two Rho Chis witnessed this and turned the chapter in (one of the Rho Chis belonged to this chapter so it was really hard for her to do). The chapter president and membership president had to go before panhellenic for a standards hearing. To be honest, the chapter pres and membership pres were very remorseful and admitted that the people from their organization had done this. Their advisor was a huge nightmare - basically screaming that it the chapter shouldn't be held accountable for their actions.

The sorority ended up getting fined and having to put on and pay for a greek wide program on underage drinking.

To this day this sorority still has issues with dirty rushing and trying to "bend" the rules. This year, thier previous history of bad behavior caught up with them and they lost their school owned house.

On extremely competitive campuses, infractions, or the threat of them, are common. My advice is to weigh the situation carefully. How serious is the infraction? Was it truly malicious in intent or was it bad judgement? Do you have all the facts and are you sure about them?
An infraction, once filed, must go through proper channels - often a judicial board in which your president must appear to represent your group and respond to the charges. Sometimes, the punishment is a warning. Sometimes it is more severe.

In 20 years I have seen tons of infractions. Some stupid stuff and others, well worth the punishment. I personally HATE the business of infractions. If you have to cheat to get new members then go right ahead. I often feel the punishment of infractions don't fit the crime. Last year during recruitment a group was doing something that was clearly against the rules. We (the advisors) could hear what this group was doing. Panhellenic found out and watched one party where the activity stopped, but then it started up again. If I have a HUGE problem with something I go talk to the other advisor of the Chapter and talk it out. The activity will usually stop.

There are Rules and they were written for good reasons, but there also needs to be some common sense applied. Many years back we had a J-Board that started getting a bit infraction happy. A prime example, one Rule is actives cannot cross the threshhold outside of the house. A member or two's hand or knee (the front row is on their knees with other members filling in behind them) "broke the plane" of the threshhold by like an inch or two while singing the door song and clapping. J-Board gave infractions. I appealed to the (then) Director of Greek Life and he told them they needed to back off a bit and concentrate more on "real" infractions.

I agree with that. I'm more concerned about chapters "dirty rushing/recruiting" and getting handed infractions for that instead of someone being an inch or two outside the threshhold.

Except for the fact that the cheating chapter walks away with a much bigger new member class than the other chapters....and who gets the short end of the stick? The one who followed the rules of course.

[QUOTE=AXOrushadvisor;1834719]In 20 years I have seen tons of infractions. Some stupid stuff and others, well worth the punishment. I personally HATE the business of infractions. If you have to cheat to get new members then go right ahead. QUOTE]


Or what about the PNMs who are dirty rushed and on bid day do not receive a bid and are horribly crushed?

[QUOTE=MaggieXi;1834835]Yeah, I'm kind of wondering about that too.

I'm on the panhellenic council at a school with a small greek system. We just started using NPC formal rush last spring, and we ran into a situation where one chapter was supposedly promising bids to girls, then cutting them before pref, THEN giving them COB bids the day after pref. They knew the girls really wanted them, and that they probably wouldn't pref other houses because they had been promised a bid to ABC, so they were able to get quota, plus an additional 10-12 girls. We heard rumors from the Rho Alphas but really figured it out when they sent us a list of COB's. They had cut every girl on that list right before pref! Basically, because we didn't know how to deal with is nothing happened to the chapter. How is this dealt with at big schools????

[QUOTE=born2bdphie;1834848]YIKES! I do think that is horrible for Chapters to promise ANY THING during recruitment. At a big school I think a Chapter would be severely punished for promising bids and dropping women and picking them back up during the COB process- that is not fair to anyone involved. They would go in front of the judicial board. You can not punish by restricting recruitment activities but you can punish a Chapter socially. NO ONE wants to be on social probation by the time recruitment rolls back around.

When I say cheating it is more like- singing when they are not supposed to be singing having a skit when it is against the rules- more stuff like that- enhancing their recruitment parties.

I take it the chapter that did this wasn't at total and the additional 10-12 girls got them there? If this keeps up, make a panhel rule that groups can't open bid a girl they cut from formal rush or something of that nature.

This was obviously a chapter being advised by someone (probably an advisor from another school) who knew how to "work the system." I would let them know that Panhel is on to them and if it continues monetary fines will be forthcoming. That will most likely (if your school is the type of school I think it is) hit them a heck of a lot harder than a relatively unenforceable social probation. Also, if the majority of groups at your school are below total, it should be lowered. Unrealistically high totals are what breed situations like this one.

That's really pretty low. That would really tick me off. I get upset when groups cheat the system like this, because it puts groups who follow the rules at a big disadvatage, especially if those groups struggle more in recruitment and the cheaters take away new members from them.

For example, one group on my campus consistently has recruitment infractions. This year, they concealed receipts from Panhel and it came to light after recruitment that they had spent over double the allowed budget. It was very obvious - while most groups do cheap things like painting paper bag puppets, their philanthropy craft was stuffing stuffed animals (their group's mascot) to give to children. Cute craft, but there was no way they could have afforded that, plus all the other stuff at their parties, and they were caught. They also are far above chapter total (by like 40 women) and made quota plus, but offered a few under-the-table bids after recruitment and told the girls not to wear letters or advertise their affiliation until after initiation, at which point it's too late to do anything. There were a few other things, but I won't get into it as it would make the group too obvious.

Another group violated the recruitment t-shirt rules one year, and had to wear their t-shirts inside out all night. That must have been really uncomfortable.

later.